Fundraising

Transforming Your Alumni Annual Fund for Sustainability

Transition alumni giving from transactional exchanges to sustainable investments. Discover how to rethink your alumni annual fund for long-term ROI here.

Brian Abernathy

Published: 

July 10, 2026

You may notice that throughout this article, we use the term “investor” when referring to “donors.” This is because Convergent believes in reframing charitable institutions as valuable community assets worthy of investment. By positioning donors as investors, we focus on sustainable funding rather than one-time gifts.

Your educational institution is a pillar of your community. However, you may undermine its stability by approaching your alumni annual fund with a transactional mindset, focusing solely on raising funds rather than on developing relationships with supporters. As a result, you may exhaust your investors and create volatile cash flows in your nonprofit’s financial accounts.

For this reason, it is necessary to shift away from a transactional relationship (in which giving is driven by the expectation of receiving something in return, such as a tax write-off) and toward a sustainable partnership, which is rooted in shared values and strategic alignment.  

This guide provides actionable steps to realign your alumni annual fund giving with long-term, mission-critical outcomes. When you treat alumni as true financial partners, you can secure robust, predictable funding that sustains your institution for decades to come.  

Understand why alumni give

Different investors have their own reasons for giving, so analyzing giving behavior is an important step to tailoring your investment-driven approach. For example, the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy reported that younger generations tend to support causes tied to social impact and advocacy, so if you want people in this demographic to give more, you have to highlight your mission and the impact you’ve had in your community in your outreach materials.

No two investors are alike. To understand why your supporters choose to contribute, try the following strategies:

  • Conduct surveys and interviews. Directly asking your investors about their philanthropic priorities removes the guesswork from your outreach strategy.
  • Analyze past data. Review your organization’s past feasibility studies to discover historical trends in your investors’ preferences and capacity.
  • Collaborate with development officers. Development officers spend a lot of time cultivating relationships with investors, so they have valuable insights regarding what drives their investments.

Incorporate these insights into your nonprofit’s constituent relationship management system (CRM), so your team can segment your audiences accurately. By the time the alumni annual fundraising comes around, you can deploy tailored messaging, thereby drastically improving conversion rates.  

Realign your alumni annual fund with strategic outcomes

Establish your institution’s value by demonstrating strict alignment between your mission, fundraising objectives, and the outcomes delivered to the community. For example, if your organization is planning a STEM initiative for first-generation students, you can frame it like this:

  • The mission: Empower first-generation students to graduate debt-free and enter high-demand STEM fields.  
  • The fundraising objective: Raise $500,000 through the alumni annual fund to provide full-ride scholarships and stipends for a cohort of 50 local students.
  • The delivered outcome: Provide an impact report showing that 100% of the funded cohort graduated on time, with 85% immediately securing employment at local companies, thereby boosting the regional economy.

When sharing the impact report with your investors, spotlight a specific narrative (e.g., a student who benefited directly from the funds), then pair that with hard numbers (e.g., “we’ve helped 100 students achieve their dreams like [Student X]”). By incorporating data in the narrative, you’re showing investors that their contributions fund tangible results.

Realigning your alumni annual fund with strategic outcomes can be challenging because there are several moving parts to consider. For this reason, Convergent recommends conducting a development audit, which provides a clear, objective assessment of your current fundraising efforts and a strategic roadmap to improve them. The result is that everyone in your team is aligned with your goals, and you can build a stronger case for investment.

Shift from a donation mindset to an investment value proposition

Shifting from a traditional donation mindset to an investment value proposition fundamentally changes the dynamic between your institution and your alumni. When you operate with a donation mindset, you inherently position the educational institution as a charity in need of a handout. Additionally, a donation mindset relies heavily on emotional appeals and transactional exchanges (e.g., giving a t-shirt or a tax write-off in exchange for money), which ultimately exhaust supporters.

When you reframe your outreach and treat alumni as long-term investors and stakeholders, you unlock distinct benefits that secure sustainable funding, such as:

  • Clearer ROI: Transactional models historically struggle to demonstrate the rational, value-based ROI that modern investors require. An investment mindset forces your team to clearly articulate the tangible, real-world impact of the funds, providing stakeholders with the proof of success they demand.
  • Engagement with younger generations of investors: As we mentioned earlier, younger demographics are highly analytical with their philanthropy. They are likely to stop investing if they do not clearly understand the strategic outcomes of their financial contributions. Presenting an investment proposition speaks directly to their desire for measurable impact.
  • Preventing supporter fatigue: Relying on small-scale emotional appeals and staff-intensive events only leads to investor burnout. When you treat alumni as true partners, you can focus on continuous, data-driven stewardship rather than bombarding them with relentless, piecemeal appeals.

To complete your shift from a transactional to an investment-driven mindset, you’ll need to audit your current communication templates and eliminate passive phrasing. For example, refer to gifts and donations as “partnerships” instead. So, rather than saying “Your gifts are needed to help maintain our current programs,” you can say, “Your partnership with our organization has helped expand our scholarship endowment and directly funds our new STEM initiative.” This subtle linguistic shift empowers alumni, making them feel like co-architects of the institution's future.

Encourage other forms of giving

In addition to launching capital campaigns, your organization should integrate workplace giving into your alumni annual fund strategy. This is because corporate philanthropy programs, such as matching gifts and volunteer grants, significantly amplify the ROI of each contribution.

That said, not many people know about workplace giving initiatives; in fact, studies show that nearly 80% of donors are unaware of whether their company offers a matching gift program. Because of this, you must educate your investors about these programs by:

  • Integrating workplace giving awareness into appeals: Do not treat corporate giving as an afterthought. Advise your development teams to actively educate alumni about corporate matching gift programs as part of your standard outreach, noting that many investors may qualify for workplace matching without realizing it.
  • Reminding investors about these programs on their thank-you receipt: When someone contributes to your fundraiser, encourage them to check their matching gift eligibility to maximize their investment. You can set up these automated reminders on your nonprofit’s donor management software.
  • Adding workplace giving to your “Ways to Give” page: Provide a brief explanation of how certain corporate giving programs work so that investors know how to participate.
  • Creating educational content about workplace giving: For example, you can write a long-form informational post or create video tutorials on how to check matching gift eligibility.

By leveraging corporate philanthropy programs, you’re shifting the giving narrative away from individual charitable donations toward larger-scale, sustainable institutional investments. In other words, you’re ensuring no money is left on the table, while maximizing the impact of your existing investor base.

As an educational institution, you’re an indispensable community asset, and your funding strategies must reflect this vital role. Transitioning from transactional appeals to a sustainable, investment-focused model ensures that you maintain long-term partnerships with alumni investors. By prioritizing data-driven stewardship and clear ROI, your future fundraising efforts will build a resilient foundation for generations to come.

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Brian Abernathy

Brian Abernathy brings a wealth of nonprofit leadership experience to his role at Convergent, where he leads a team of highly experienced fundraisers and leaders with a focus on innovation and flexibility to ensure the best outcomes from each client relationship. Over the course of his career, he has launched local chapters of international organizations, built cross-sector partnerships, and guided new nonprofits through the complexities of operational setup.

Related Blog Posts

Modern fundraising strategies and campaigns are more inclusive of the full donor journey than ever before. With more causes and giving opportunities available to donors than ever before, your fundraising strategy now needs to not just raise but also engage, nurture, and sustain itself.

Despite this, 56% of nonprofits for example, report having no formal donor engagement strategy, according to a 2025 NonProfit PRO survey.

So in this blog, we’ll break down how to build a practical fundraising strategy ready for the modern-day donor so your institution or organization can improve donor relationships, choose the right fundraising channels, and use donor data to strengthen fundraising results over time.

Fundraising event planning template

Why Having the Right Fundraising Strategy Matters

A strong fundraising strategy helps create a structure around how donor engagement, campaigns, stewardship, and reporting work together. Instead of treating fundraising as a series of isolated activities, organizations can build repeatable systems that improve results over time.

For nonprofits, this often means improving recurring giving, strengthening donor retention, and creating more predictable fundraising growth. Schools, colleges, and universities also need to think beyond revenue goals alone. Alumni participation, long-term engagement, annual giving participation, and community involvement all play an important role in advancement success.

A structured fundraising strategy should always help your team:

  • Create more personalized donor experiences
  • Improve campaign participation rates
  • Build stronger stewardship workflows
  • Track fundraising performance more consistently
  • Use donor and engagement data to optimize future campaigns

As fundraising programs grow more digital and multi-channel, having a clear strategy has become more of a necessity for sustainability. Teams that can connect donor outreach, engagement, fundraising campaigns, and reporting into one coordinated approach are often better positioned to build long-term donor relationships and improve fundraising outcomes year after year.

How to Build a Fundraising Strategy for Schools, Colleges, and Nonprofits

Modern fundraising strategies have evolved to become an ongoing system instead of a one-time campaign plan. The goal is to create a repeatable process that improves donor engagement, strengthens retention, and helps teams make better fundraising decisions over time.

The steps below provide a practical framework that nonprofits, schools, colleges, and universities can use to build a more structured fundraising strategy.

Step 1: Evaluate Your Current Fundraising Performance

Before planning new fundraising campaigns, start by reviewing how previous efforts actually performed.

Many institutions/organizations jump into campaign planning without fully understanding which fundraising activities generated strong engagement, which donor segments converted best, or where campaign drop-offs happened. This makes it harder to improve future fundraising results.

Prioritize analyzing:

  • Total funds raised compared to campaign targets
  • Donor participation trends across campaigns
  • Performance by fundraising channel
  • Donor retention and recurring giving rates
  • Campaign engagement before and after fundraising events

For educational institutions particularly, this review should also include alumni participation trends, reunion giving performance, giving day participation, and engagement across class years or affinity groups.

The goal here is to establish a clear baseline. Once teams understand what is driving participation and where engagement weakens, future fundraising decisions become far more strategic.

Step 2: Define Your Fundraising Goals and Objectives

The best fundraising goals nowadays are specific, measurable, and connected to broader organizational priorities.

Without clear goals, your campaigns run the risk of becoming activity-driven instead of outcome-driven. The last thing you want is for  your team to stay busy executing fundraising efforts but struggle to measure whether those same efforts are actually improving long-term fundraising performance.

Fundraising goals may include:

  • Increasing total donations
  • Improving donor retention
  • Growing recurring giving programs
  • Acquiring new donors
  • Increasing alumni participation
  • Expanding community fundraising efforts

For schools, colleges, and universities, fundraising goals usually extend into participation and engagement because they reflect long-term donor relationship strength.

For example, a giving day campaign may focus on:

  • Increasing total donors
  • Improving young alumni participation
  • Expanding peer-to-peer fundraising activity
  • Re-engaging previously inactive alumni

Clearly defined goals also help advancement and fundraising teams allocate resources more effectively across campaigns, communication channels, and donor segments. In fact, according to a Fundraising Effectiveness Project report, recurring monthly givers have yearly retention rates up to 90%, making monthly giving programs one of the most effective ways to build sustainable fundraising revenue.

Step 3: Identify and Segment Your Target Donors

Not every donor engages with fundraising campaigns in the same way. That is why donor segmentation plays a critical role in improving fundraising strategy and campaign performance. Generic outreach often leads to lower engagement because messaging, campaign timing, and donation asks are not aligned with donor interests or behavior.

Instead, organizations should segment donors based on factors such as:

  • Giving history
  • Engagement levels
  • Demographics
  • Geographic location
  • Alumni graduation year
  • Career stage
  • Past campaign participation

Common donor segments may include:

  • Recurring donors
  • Young alumni
  • Major giving prospects
  • Parents and family supporters
  • Community donors
  • Lapsed donors
  • Event participants

Segmentation helps fundraising teams personalize communication and create more relevant donor experiences. A young alumnus attending their first reunion will likely respond differently than a long-term recurring donor or a parent donor contributing to a scholarship campaign.

This level of personalization becomes especially important as fundraising campaigns become more multi-channel and digitally driven.

Step 4: Choose the Right Fundraising Campaigns and Channels

Different fundraising goals require different campaign formats. While some campaigns are designed to maximize donor participation, others focus on recurring giving, donor acquisition, or peer-driven fundraising momentum.

A strong fundraising strategy aligns campaign selection with donor behavior and organizational goals instead of relying on the same fundraising format every year.

Common fundraising campaign types include:

  • Annual giving campaigns
  • Giving days
  • Crowdfunding campaigns
  • Peer-to-peer fundraising
  • Event-led fundraising initiatives
  • Scholarship or emergency fundraising appeals

Equally important is choosing the right communication channels to support those campaigns. Most successful fundraising programs now rely on a mix of:

  • Email campaigns
  • SMS outreach
  • Social media
  • Video communication
  • Alumni events and reunions
  • Ambassador and peer-sharing programs

This multi-channel approach helps organizations create more donor touchpoints throughout the campaign lifecycle. For schools and universities, combining digital outreach with alumni events, reunions, and volunteer-driven campaigns often helps increase both participation and donor visibility across alumni networks.

Step 5: Build Strong Campaign Messaging and Storytelling

Even well-planned fundraising campaigns struggle if the messaging comes off as generic or transactional. Strong fundraising communication gives donors a clear reason to participate. It helps them understand the impact of their contribution and creates an emotional connection with the campaign itself. Most effective fundraising campaigns include:

  • A clearly defined campaign purpose
  • Donor-centered storytelling
  • Real examples of impact
  • Time-sensitive urgency drivers
  • A direct and simple call to action

For nonprofits, this may involve showing how donor support directly impacts programs or communities served.

For schools and universities, alumni stories, student success narratives, faculty initiatives, and campus impact stories often create stronger emotional engagement. Donors are more likely to participate when they can clearly connect their contribution to people, experiences, or outcomes they care about.

Urgency also matters. Matching gift challenges, campaign countdowns, donor milestones, and giving day participation goals can help create momentum during fundraising campaigns.

Step 6: Create Donor Engagement and Stewardship Workflows

One of the biggest reasons donor retention declines is inconsistent stewardship after campaigns end. Organizations spend heavily on donor acquisition but often underinvest in ongoing engagement and relationship-building.

Neon One's 2026 Recurring Donor Report found that the average recurring donor stays engaged with a nonprofit for 7.77 years, compared to just 1.7 years for non-recurring supporters, demonstrating the long-term impact of consistent stewardship efforts.

Effective donor stewardship includes:

  • Personalized thank-you communication
  • Donor recognition initiatives
  • Campaign impact updates
  • Recurring engagement touchpoints
  • Invitations to events and community programs
  • Follow-up communication tied to donor interests

For educational institutions, stewardship often extends into alumni engagement programs, reunions, mentoring opportunities, and volunteer initiatives that keep donors connected beyond fundraising campaigns alone.

Recurring giving programs can also strengthen long-term donor retention because they create more consistent engagement throughout the year instead of limiting donor interaction to annual campaigns.

Almabase stewardship guide

Step 7: Plan Events, Giving Days, and Community Fundraising Programs

Events and time-bound fundraising campaigns create visibility, urgency, and participation momentum. For many organizations, these campaigns also serve as important engagement opportunities that strengthen donor relationships beyond the donation itself.

Common fundraising events and participation-driven campaigns include:

  • Giving days
  • Alumni reunions
  • Gala fundraisers
  • Community fundraising drives
  • Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns
  • Ambassador-led initiatives

The most effective campaigns often combine fundraising with social participation mechanics that encourage donors to share and engage publicly.

This may include:

  • Leaderboards
  • Fundraising ambassadors
  • Matching gift campaigns
  • Live campaign progress tracking
  • Participation challenges
  • Social sharing incentives

For schools and universities, giving days are especially effective because they combine alumni engagement, peer participation, social visibility, and fundraising urgency into one coordinated campaign.

Platforms like Almabase support these campaigns through branded giving pages, social fundraising features, engagement tracking, and CRM-connected fundraising workflows that help teams manage participation and donor activity more efficiently.

Step 8: Use CRM and Fundraising Data to Improve Campaign Performance

As fundraising programs grow, managing donor information across disconnected systems becomes increasingly difficult.

CRM-connected fundraising such as Almabase’s Raiser’s Edge NXT integration helps organizations centralize donor data, engagement activity, event participation, and campaign reporting into one system. This improves both operational efficiency and fundraising visibility.

According to the 2026 CCS Philanthropy Pulse report, 36% of organizations reported difficulties leveraging data for decision-making in 2025 (up from just 14% the previous year), while data management and CRM issues more than doubled from 15% to 33%, highlighting the critical need for systems that make data actionable for fundraising teams.

Using donor and engagement data allows teams to:

  • Personalize fundraising outreach
  • Automate stewardship workflows
  • Improve donor segmentation
  • Track campaign performance in real time
  • Measure fundraising ROI more accurately
  • Identify high-engagement donor groups

For schools and universities, connected fundraising data is especially valuable because advancement teams often manage alumni engagement, annual giving, events, volunteer programs, and donor communication simultaneously.

Platforms like Almabase help institutions manage fundraising campaigns, alumni engagement, events, giving days, and donor data within a connected system that works alongside existing CRMs. This helps teams reduce manual work while improving reporting, donor visibility, and campaign coordination across advancement programs.

National Alumni Survey

How to Measure and Improve Your Fundraising Strategy

A fundraising strategy should evolve based on donor behavior, campaign performance, and engagement trends. The more consistently teams measure results, the easier it becomes to improve future campaigns and strengthen long-term fundraising outcomes.

Key Fundraising Metrics and KPIs

Tracking the right fundraising metrics helps organizations understand what is working and where campaigns need improvement. Some of the most important fundraising KPIs include:

  • Donor retention rate
  • Participation rate
  • Average gift size
  • Campaign conversion rate
  • Fundraising ROI
  • Donor acquisition cost

For schools and universities, alumni participation rates are especially important because they reflect long-term engagement strength beyond total dollars raised.

Platforms like Almabase help teams consolidate fundraising and engagement data into one system, making reporting and campaign analysis easier to manage.

Use Multi-Channel Communication to Improve Engagement

Donors rarely engage through a single communication channel anymore. Combining email, SMS, social media, events, and peer outreach helps organizations create multiple engagement touchpoints throughout the donor journey. This improves campaign visibility and increases the likelihood of donor participation.

A coordinated multi-channel fundraising strategy also helps teams maintain engagement before, during, and after campaigns.

Personalize Outreach Using Donor Data

Personalized fundraising campaigns consistently perform better than generic donation appeals. Using donor and engagement data allows teams to:

  • Tailor messaging by donor segment
  • Personalize fundraising asks
  • Improve alumni outreach campaigns
  • Increase repeat donations and donor retention

As fundraising programs scale, segmentation and CRM insights become critical for delivering more relevant donor experiences.

Increase Participation Through Gamification and Social Proof

Gamification creates momentum by making fundraising campaigns feel more visible, interactive, and community-driven. Common examples include:

  • Leaderboards
  • Donor challenges
  • Matching gift campaigns
  • Fundraising milestones
  • Ambassador programs

In fact, social proof also plays an important role, as donors are often more likely to participate when they see peers, alumni, or community members actively contributing to a campaign.

Optimize the Mobile Giving Experience

A growing share of fundraising traffic and donations now comes from mobile devices. To improve mobile conversion rates, you can:

  • Keep donation forms short and simple
  • Reduce checkout friction
  • Optimize donation pages for mobile responsiveness
  • Make donation links easy to access across channels

Even small improvements in the mobile giving experience can have a meaningful impact on fundraising performance and donor completion rates.

A strong fundraising strategy is built around consistent donor engagement, better fundraising visibility, and systems that help organizations strengthen relationships over time.

Whether you are leading fundraising for a nonprofit, school, college, or university, the organizations that see long-term fundraising growth are usually the ones that treat strategy, stewardship, and donor experience as connected parts of the same process.

Build Your Fundraising Strategy With Almabase

Fundraising becomes harder to scale when campaigns, donor engagement, events, and reporting operate in disconnected systems. Teams spend more time managing manual workflows than building donor relationships, which makes campaign execution and long-term engagement harder to sustain.

Almabase serves as your fundraising platform and addresses this gap by helping nonprofits, schools, colleges, and universities bring fundraising and engagement into one connected platform so teams can execute campaigns more efficiently and make better fundraising decisions over time.

With Almabase, teams can:

  • Manage fundraising campaigns, giving days, and events from one platform
  • Improve alumni and donor engagement through personalized outreach
  • Track participation, donor activity, and campaign performance more clearly
  • Reduce manual reporting and disconnected workflows
  • Keep fundraising and engagement data connected with existing CRMs

Whether the goal is improving donor retention, increasing alumni participation, or running more coordinated fundraising campaigns, having the right infrastructure makes long-term fundraising growth easier to manage.

Book a demo with Almabase to see how your team can streamline fundraising strategy, donor engagement, and campaign execution in one place.

FAQs

1. What is a fundraising strategy template?

A fundraising strategy template is a structured framework that helps organizations plan campaigns, define donor audiences, organize communication channels, estimate fundraising targets, and track performance. It gives fundraising teams a repeatable process for managing campaigns more consistently instead of rebuilding workflows from scratch every time a new fundraising initiative begins.

2. How do you create a fundraising strategy from scratch?

Creating a fundraising strategy starts with evaluating past campaign performance, defining fundraising goals, identifying donor segments, selecting the right campaign channels, and tracking results consistently. Platforms like Almabase help organizations manage fundraising campaigns, donor engagement, events, and reporting within one connected system, making strategy execution easier to scale.

3. How often should you update your fundraising strategy?

Most organizations should review their fundraising strategy quarterly or annually depending on campaign frequency and donor engagement trends. Regular reviews help fundraising teams identify performance gaps, adjust donor communication strategies, improve campaign execution, and respond more effectively to changing donor behavior and fundraising priorities throughout the year.

4. What are the best fundraising strategies for nonprofits?

Some of the most effective fundraising strategies for nonprofits include recurring giving programs, peer-to-peer fundraising, digital fundraising campaigns, donor stewardship initiatives, and multi-channel outreach. Nonprofits that consistently focus on donor retention, personalized communication, and long-term relationship building often see stronger fundraising stability and higher donor lifetime value over time.

5. What are effective fundraising strategies for schools and universities?

Schools and universities often rely on alumni engagement, annual giving campaigns, giving days, reunions, and personalized donor outreach to improve fundraising participation. Advancement teams also use ambassador programs, peer fundraising, and alumni storytelling to strengthen emotional connection, increase donor visibility, and build long-term engagement across alumni communities and supporters.

6. How can you improve donor engagement and participation?

Organizations can improve donor engagement through personalized outreach, multi-channel communication, stronger stewardship, and a seamless donation experience. Platforms like Almabase help teams increase participation by connecting fundraising campaigns, alumni engagement, giving days, events, and donor data into one centralized platform that supports more coordinated donor experiences.

How to Build a Strong Fundraising Strategy

Learn how to build a fundraising strategy that improves donor engagement, campaign planning, alumni participation, and long-term fundraising growth.

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June 19, 2026

12 minutes

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Picture this: You’re the director of fundraising and development at a well-known higher education institution. You’ve recently had a ton of money coming in to support your larger-scale initiatives. A private grant-giving foundation is providing your team with the money required to open a high-tech computer lab, and a major donor is funding the building of a new wing at the school.

But what about your other day-to-day operations? You need funds to keep your institution above water, continue paying staff salaries, and invest in behind-the-scenes technology that allows your university to continue running smoothly. Oftentimes, major gifts and grant funding don’t cover those needs.

And that’s where your annual fundraising strategy comes in! In this guide, we’ll explore four powerful tips for boosting this particular type of fundraising. As you begin planning your upcoming campaign, be sure to:

  1. Review your previous year’s strategy.
  2. Set strategic fundraising goals.
  3. Diversify your annual appeal channels.
  4. Double donations with corporate matching gifts.

Advancement playbook

All sorts of mission-driven organizations rely on annual fundraising to help ⁠manage their in-between needs—and when it comes to university and other education-based institutions, your alumni are likely to be your biggest supporters!

Are you ready to uncover how you can position your school for the greatest annual fundraising success going into 2022? Let’s get started.

1. Review your previous year’s strategy

Fundraising organizations have learned a lot about effective fundraising strategies (and the way that they’re always changing) from the highs and lows of 2021. And before that, 2020. Going in 2022, reviewing efforts and results from previous years can give you a head start toward success.

To get started, take a look at where your fundraising flourished in the past year, as well as where you see room for improvement. If you notice that your efforts in the corporate giving arena could use some extra work, for example, consider prioritizing corporate fundraising in the upcoming year.

Here are some other key performance indicators (or KPIs) you might look at:

  • The total amount of fundraising revenue
  • Total number of donors
  • Average donation size (and average increase over time)
  • Percentage of repeat donors vs. one-time and lapsed givers
  • Donations made through your website, direct mail, in-person, phone, events, and more

As you craft your newest annual fundraising strategy, make sure to prioritize the avenues that have historically been your most profitable while also giving extra care to channels that may be lagging behind.

2. Set strategic fundraising goals

A significant element of successful fundraising involves setting fundraising goals beforehand. Otherwise, how will you determine “success” in the first place?

You’ll want to choose lofty objectives that inspire donors and fundraisers alike while ensuring you don’t aim too high that it can seem unrealistic or like a “lost cause.” To find the perfect medium between the two, the best and most effective goals often follow the SMART framework.

As you craft your upcoming objectives, make sure they are:

  • Specific. Your fundraising team (and donors) should know exactly what the goal is and how to reach it.
  • Measurable. Ensure you choose quantifiable metrics that can easily be measured to determine success.
  • Attainable. Again, unrealistic goals can set you up for failure. Make sure your goal is attainable, given your team and available resources.
  • Relevant. Your fundraising goals should be directly related to fundraising⁠—and specifically, your annual fundraising campaign.
  • Time-bound. Set a clear time period in which your annual campaign will run. This instills urgency among donors and allows you to determine whether you’ve reached your goal by the end.

Here’s an example of a SMART goal for an upcoming campaign - “To collect $10,000,000 in individual contributions to fund university operations by 12/31/2022.”

To contrast, a poorly crafted goal might look like this - “To raise a lot of money in the next few months.”

The former sample is much clearer and will ultimately result in greater success, while the latter is subjective and vague. When your annual fundraising objectives incorporate each element listed above, you can ensure your team is positioned for success.

3. Diversify your annual appeal channels

The more fundraising strategies and tools develop, the more comprehensive your campaigns are expected to be. As a result, organizations are encouraged to integrate multiple channels to spread the word about their annual fundraising efforts far and wide.

The particular avenues you choose to leverage for your annual campaign can vary depending on your donors’ preferences and your team’s strong points. However, they will likely incorporate a combination of the following:

Several years ago, you may have been able to reach your goals solely through phone and in-person solicitation efforts. Now, it’s essential that you take a multichannel approach⁠—both to meet donors where they already are and to stand out from other organizations seeking your audiences’ attention.

4. Double donations with corporate matching gifts

Did you know that more than 26 million people work for companies with corporate matching gift programs? It’s likely that many of these individuals are your alumni, donors, and other key supporters.

Before you can expect a solid flow of corporate matches coming in, however, you’ll need to enact specific matching gift marketing strategies to raise awareness of this powerful opportunity. Because although 26+ million individuals are eligible for company matches, more than 78% of this group is completely unaware.

To incorporate corporate matching gifts into your annual fundraising strategy, consider these best practices:

  • Share general matching gift information on social media.
  • Incorporate matching gift appeals in your donation solicitations.
  • Highlight matching gift opportunities directly in your online giving process.
  • Follow up with match-eligible donors after receiving their initial gifts.
  • Provide company-specific matching gift program guidelines with donors whose employers you know.

For you, matching gifts mean that your school has the potential to collect two donations for the cost of soliciting one. And for your donors, they get to know their contributions went twice as far.

You can’t do the big things (like your overall mission impact) without being able to fund the little things as well. An effective annual fundraising strategy allows your team to collect the dollars you need to bankroll every part of your school’s operations⁠—from the most glamorous of tasks to the most mundane.

Luckily, integrating these best practices into your strategy will allow you to raise more funding for your institution and better situate your team for ongoing success. Good luck!

4 Tips for Your Annual Fundraising Strategy

Effective annual fundraising is critical for universities and other donation-driven institutions. Explore four easy tips to set your school up for success.

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December 30, 2021

12 minutes

Read

Back in 2020, advancement teams across the country had to shift to rethink their programming to find unique ways of engaging alumni and donors. Fundraising professionals have since leveraged virtual platforms to engage donors through more accessible programs and events. With the fall spirit of giving upon us, now's the right time to start thinking about ways to boost donations at your Fall Giving Day 2024.

Giving Day is a powerful online fundraising campaign conducted for 24 hours with the purpose of raising money and finding new donors. Giving Days provide alumni with the ideal opportunity to serve their alma mater by helping the institution in a time of need. 

As the pandemic continues, it's evident that Giving Day 2026 will be unlike any of the previous traditional Giving Days. With advancement teams shifting their focus to raising money online at their fall Giving Day and upcoming Giving Tuesday, here are 5 innovative strategies to help them get started. 

1. Build up to the day 

It's always a best practice to start promoting your Giving Day as early as possible and build-up to the day of the event. While you can't invite your alumni to campus to let them know about your fall Giving Day, countdown posts on social media are a great way to spread the word.

Instead of merely creating posters or event notifications at intervals like, say, 15, 10, and 5 days before the Giving Day, think of ways to incentivize donors to participate. For instance, along with every countdown post, you can also share testimonials of past donors on social media. Seeing a friend believe in your institution’s cause can be a strong motivator for more alumni to donate.

Including photos and videos of how your institution has utilized funds raised at past fundraising events is another great way to motivate potential donors. Scranton Preparatory School's fundraising campaign is an excellent example of how they leveraged countdowns to their benefit. 

How Scranton Preparatory School increased its Giving Day donations by 5 times

2. Connect With Your Donors at a Personal Level

As the pandemic forces us to be confined to our homes, now more than ever, is the perfect time for your institution to invest greatly in building and growing an online community that your constituents can benefit from. 

While an online community is great for driving engagement, not all potential donors will react the same way to your fundraising asks. For instance, an alum who's been working as an investment banker for 10 years might be more receptive to your fundraising ask this Giving Day than a young alum who's just graduated college and is still reeling under the pressure of repaying his student loan. 

Personalizing your fundraising asks, therefore, plays a crucial role in building a unique connection with each constituent and paving the way for lasting relationships. Check out Archbishop Riordan High School's campaign that encouraged alumni to contribute towards improving their school campus. 

Use dynamic segmentation to segregate your constituents based on class year, location, donation history, interests, etc. and personalize your emails right from the first message to the final thank you. 

How to personalize your email outreach to boost online giving

3. Host Virtual Events 

While promoting your Giving Day via in-person events does not look likely this fall, an increasing number of advancement teams are contemplating virtual events

In the past couple of years, the industry has seen a ton of successful virtual events being implemented by institutions, big and small. Many have seen a steady rise in participation at virtual events because they're easily accessible irrespective of location or time. Virtual events, therefore, can help you tap into a wider network of donors and be a valuable addition to your marketing plan for Giving Day 2026. 

As an added tip, you can use virtual event management software to engage alumni and drive participation at your fall Giving Day 2026.

Greenwich Academy's first virtual Alumnae Reunion in history

4. Make Every Channel Count 

As online engagement becomes pivotal for a successful Giving Day campaign in 2026, it is equally important to make the best use of the channels at your disposal. 

Social media is the ideal place to meet and connect with new people, with platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook enabling you to explore potential donors. Calvert Hall College's picture slideshow on Facebook went viral to help them boost their fundraising campaign. 

While you may already be connected with some of your donors on shared groups, use the network of your existing supporters to influence new donors. In addition to social media, emails and personal one-on-one calls are popular channels employed by most institutions for fundraising asks. If you are worried that alumni might ignore your email requests, here are some tips for you. 

While driving more donors online may be your priority, also ensure that the online giving experience is smooth and flexible. 

How Calvert Hall High School increased its Giving Day donations by twice as muvh in 3 years

5. Encourage Peer-to-Peer Crowdfunding  

Now that you have done your bit to promote the campaign, how can you leverage your supporters to maximize the impact? Your donors are the ones who can carry your fundraising campaign forward by spreading the word through their networks. 

You can find ways to make social sharing easy for donors and create more incentives for them to influence others in their network. For example, encourage your supporters to broadcast and share their contributions on social media. Offer them a customized template and prompt them to share this message on social media right after they've completed a gift. 

You can also create a filter for Instagram or Facebook that donors can apply to their profile photos. Seeing their peers support their alma mater's cause can act as a strong driving factor for other constituents to contribute to the same cause. Here are other ways to build stronger online communities in today's times. 

Gamification techniques like leaderboards, challenges, and tributes are some additional great ways for invoking a healthy sense of competition amongst various constituent groups and amplifying the impact of gifts at your Giving Day. Need more information on how to run crowdfunding campaigns? Learn more here. 

How Christian Brothers Academy leveraged peer-to-peer fundraising at its Giving Day amidst COVID-19

Planning a Giving Day has never been an easy task, but, with the pandemic leaving a majority of institutions around the world with a severe financial crisis, Giving Day 2026 is a big opportunity.

5 Fundraising Tips for Fall Giving Day in 2026

As institutions across the country start preparing for their Fall Giving Day 2026 and Giving Tuesday campaigns, here are 5 fundraising strategies to help them engage donors and boost donations this year.

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September 20, 2020

12 minutes

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